Statement by public organizations in connection with the state Day in the Republic of Armenia of Remembrance of the victims of the massacres in Azerbaijan.
Sumgait massacres and pogroms in 1988. Armenian genocide in Azerbaijan.
37 years ago, on February 27-29, 1988, an act of genocide against the Armenian population of the city of Sumgait in the Azerbaijan SSR was committed. As a result of the targeted and planned actions of the Azerbaijani authorities and with the connivance of the USSR authorities, mass pogroms and murders of Armenians were committed, crimes against humanity that shocked the world community with their savagery and cruelty. The entire Armenian population of 18,000 people was completely expelled from Sumgait.
The Sumgait genocide was not an isolated or exceptional event in Azerbaijan. The massacre of Armenians, ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Armenian population, a consistent policy of artificial assimilation of Armenians and other non-Turkic peoples in Azerbaijan were carried out from the very beginning of the creation of the state under this name and continued under Soviet power. Here is one of the many examples of the implementation of the Armenian genocide, described in a letter from a member of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan Musayev to the government of the RSFSR about the March 1920 pogroms in Shusha. Here are excerpts from his letter: “The merciless extermination of defenseless women, children, old men, old women, etc. began. Armenians were subjected to mass slaughter... The pogroms continued for more than six days, all the houses in the Armenian part were destroyed, plundered and burned to the ground... Khosrov-bek Sultanov, while giving speeches, announced to the Muslims to start a holy war and called for a final end to the Armenians of the city of Shusha, without sparing women, children, etc.”
In Soviet Azerbaijan, the policy of ethnic cleansing continued intensively. When the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic was created, Armenians made up about 50% of the population, but by the mid-80s, there were none left! By 1992, almost 500,000 Armenians were expelled from more than 300 settlements. Almost the same number of Jews and Russians were expelled. Why did Armenians and representatives of other peoples leave, or rather flee, Azerbaijan? From pogroms, massacres and forced expulsion!
In both Soviet and modern Azerbaijan, the falsification of the history and culture of the Armenian people pursues the goal of destroying the material evidence of this culture and distorting its spiritual component. It is being carried out very aggressively, in its arsenal it is a crude manipulation and falsification of historical documents and evidence, creation of various anti-scientific myths. The destruction and appropriation of historical heritage, the so-called "Albanization", is aimed to tell the whole world in regard of the Armenians - "you were not here, there is nothing of yours here". The pogroms and massacres of Armenians organized in Sumgait in February 1988 at the state level did not receive an adequate political and legal assessment, and their organizers and perpetrators were not brought to justice. Impunity created a precedent for the subsequent genocide of Armenians in January 1990 in Baku and similar crimes in other regions of Azerbaijan, as well as in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Sumgait genocide gave the green light to new unprecedented crimes against civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh, ultimately leading to the start of armed aggression by Azerbaijan against Nagorno-Karabakh in 1991-94.
States parties to the Genocide Convention have undertaken the duty to prevent and punish genocide. The International Court has ruled that States Parties must not wait until genocide has been committed, and the whole point of the obligation is to prevent or attempt to prevent the commission of this act. In the resolution of the European Parliament of 7 July 1988, it was stated that the Armenians were subjected to massacres in Sumgait and atrocities in Baku, which created a dangerous situation for them and led to their expulsion from Azerbaijan. However, no concrete practical steps were taken to punish the perpetrators and prevent the genocide of Armenians in Azerbaijan. The culmination of Azerbaijan's genocidal policy was the 44-day war of 2020, the 280-day blockade of all transport communications linking the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic with the outside world, the large-scale military aggression against it on September 19, 2023, accompanied by violence, killings of civilians, including children and the elderly, and other acts of vandalism - all testify to deliberate acts aimed at the genocide of Armenians by expelling them from their native land.
All of the surviving Armenian population left Nagorno-Karabakh. What happened also characterizes the results of the negotiation processes that took place between the parties to the conflict on Russian, American and Brussels platforms, and were accompanied by optimistic statements and calls for the protection of the rights and security of the Karabakh Armenians. However, measures envisaged by the international obligations of the UN member states were not taken against the criminal acts of Azerbaijan to prevent the genocide of the Armenians of Karabakh. The UN Security Council, having considered the issue of the humanitarian catastrophe in Nagorno-Karabakh at an emergency meeting, limited itself to calls for restraint and respect for human rights, addressed to both the aggressor and its victim.
Today, the Azerbaijani authorities are publicly making territorial claims against Armenia, including the capital of Armenia, the city of Yerevan. The armed forces of Azerbaijan have occupied the sovereign territories of the Republic of Armenia. There are dead and wounded, including among the civilian population. Following the policy of Nazi Germany, Aliyev demands to build an extraterritorial transport corridor through Armenian Syunik, just as Hitler demanded that Poland allow Germany to build extraterritorial railways and highways through its territory. And he openly threatens to solve it by force!
In line with the active continuation of the genocidal policy of Azerbaijan, an illegal trial of the leaders of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has been organized in Baku, which is a kind of continuation of "Sumgait".
We, the undersigned, appeal to the leadership of the UN, as well as the countries that are members of the UN Security Council, the Human Rights Council, with an appeal to take immediate effective measures to restore the rights and ensure the return to the original homeland of the indigenous Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh, expelled as a result of the ethnic cleansing committed by the Azerbaijani regime, the genocide of Armenians who have lived in their native land of Nagorno-Karabakh for thousands of years.
We appeal to the leaders of the countries that are co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, to the leaders of the European Union, the leaders of the BRICS countries, all countries of good will with an appeal to give an adequate assessment of the legal basis for the self-determination of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, their right to live in their native land. It is necessary to condemn the criminal acts of Azerbaijan, take decisive measures in support of the Armenians of the NKR, apply sanctions to the state that subjected the people to aggression and genocide. We call on international organizations, political, legal institutions and organizations dealing with issues of human rights protection, parliamentarians, political and public figures, and the expert community to raise their voices against the illegal trial of the leaders of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and other Armenians who were captured as a result of the criminal aggressive acts of the Azerbaijani anti-people authorities, and demand their immediate release from the dungeons of Baku prisons.
«Against legal arbitrariness» NGO- Yerevan, Armenia
Armenian Association of Political Scientists - Yerevan, Armenia
"Miasin" (Together), Alternative Social and Political Movement - Yerevan, Armenia
Research and analytical public organization "Integration and Development" - Yerevan, Armenia
Public organization of sociological and political science initiatives “Crossroad” – Saint Petersburg, Russia
Union "For Artsakh" - Saint Petersburg, Russia
World Armenian Youth Network
Armenian centre of Education Policy- Yerevan, Armenia
Federation of youth clubs of Armenia- Yerevan, Armenia
"CENTER FOR SUPPORT OF RUSSIAN-ARMENIAN STRATEGIC AND PUBLIC INITIATIVES" -Moscow, Russia
Russian-Armenian Association of Lawyers ARMROS- Moscow, Russia
Editorial staff of the information and analytical website: https://russia-armenia.info
Regional Public organization "RUSSIAN-ARTSAKH FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY" – Moscow, Russia
Editorial staff of the information and analytical website: https://russia-artsakh.ru
Moscow regional organization "RUSSIARUSSIAN SOCIETY FOR FRIENDSHIP AND COOPERATION WITH ARMENIA, Russia
• "Union of NKR Refugees" - Armenia
Armenian-Russian Friendship and Cooperation Society, NGO – Yerevan, Armenia •
"Dialogue of Civilizations", NGO – Yerevan, Armenia
Karavan-88, NGO – Yerevan, Armenia
« Motherhood» of Artsakh, NGO
«From Artsakh to Artsakh» NGO TWIH Center, - Republic of Artsakh
NGO "Harmonious Union of Society and Nature" - Republic of Artsakh
NGO "Union of Reserve Officers of Artsakh" - Republic of Artsakh
NGO "Center for Preservation of the Artsakh Culture" - Republic of Artsakh
NGO "Our Mountains" - Republic of Artsakh
" Following in the footsteps of our ancestors " NGO -Republic of Artsakh
NGO "Center for Youth Public Research" - Republic of Artsakh
Public Organization "Auto-moto Federation of the Republic of Artsakh" - the Republic of Artsakh
NGO "Generation of Hayk", head - Republic of Artsakh
Social and Youth NGO "Equal Opportunities" - Republic of Artsakh
The statement is open for signature.
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